Product Reviews

2 Customer Reviews

My first foray into the world of automatic watches. Love the clean, crisp presentation of the watch face and the remarkably readable day and date complications.
The exhibition window on the case back shows off the watch's mechanical nature, which has it's own charm if you're into that sort of thing.
The standard criticisms of this particular model of Seiko 5 are:
1) the case is only something like 38mm in diameter, rather than the more common 42 - 45mm case size. Some people (men especially) might consider it too delicate in appearance. I've read somewhere that this actually was the standard size for men's watches up until a couple of decades ago. Prior to that, only divers wore watches with 45mm cases. Today the fashion is for larger time pieces and in comparison this little Seiko comes off more as 'unisex' sizing. I have thin wrists anyway and the smaller case bothered me for about a day. Now it looks perfectly proportioned to me.
2) Accuracy. Mechanical movements, especially ones this inexpensive, are not quartz accurate. Most gain or lose about 5 to 20 seconds a day. I've found mine to be about 10 seconds slow; I re-adjust about once a week. There are YT videos that explain how to open up the case back and adjust the timing bar, but it's easy to push the bar too far in either direction; it often takes a lot of trial and error before you get a net improvement in accuracy. I attempted that in my previous Seiko 5 and somehow managed to unseat the mainspring on my third adjustment, instantly disabling the watch. I'll live with my 10 seconds a day accuracy and leave the internals alone. On the plus side, what Seiko automatic movements ARE known for is extreme reliability. Take care of the watch and it's supposed to tick along faithfully for years and years.